


Heaven tastes like artificial cherry flavor

by kooky500



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Captivity, Explicit Consent, Frigga's A+ Parenting, Heavy Angst, Helblindi is a good brother, Hospitals, Human Trafficking, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Jane is not the best here, Kidnapping, Loki and Thor Are Not Related, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Multi, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Odin (Marvel)'s Bad Parenting, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Assault, Past Violence, Psychological Trauma, Sexual Content, Sort Of, Suicidal Thoughts, Trauma, seriously this is going to hurt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 10:40:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25848190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kooky500/pseuds/kooky500
Summary: When Thor was just 14 years old, he fell in love with a boy. A quiet, unassuming boy named Loki. He was 17 when Loki went missing.Now, more than a decade later, Loki’s case has officially gone cold, neither hide nor hair ever seen of the boy since the day he disappeared. Meanwhile, Thor wonders if there’s a “wiki-how-to” article that could tell him how he should go about telling his wife that he’s gay. Oh, and that he may or may not be a little bit still in love with a metaphorical ghost that he’s been chasing for twelve years.Then Thor gets the news that after all this time, Loki has finally been found – and he’s alive. Things just got a lot more complicated.
Relationships: Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Sif (Marvel), Byleistr & Loki (Marvel), Farbauti/Laufey (Marvel), Frigga | Freyja/Odin (Marvel), Helblindi & Loki (Marvel), Jane Foster/Thor, Loki & Natasha Romanov, Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 43





	Heaven tastes like artificial cherry flavor

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd, so please do kindly point out any grammar or spelling errors in the comments. Constructive criticism is welcome (but please be nice - I'm fragile).
> 
> This is still a WIP, so I'm not sure when I'll update, but I will try to post fairly consistently. At the time of writing this, this fic is shaping up to be around 10+ chapters at minimum, but that might increase or decrease. 
> 
> Comments/bookmarks/kudos are always welcome too and much appreciated!

Thor’s fondest memory is of a boy. A boy with black hair that hung in choppy layers just above his shoulders, looking like someone had taken a pair of kitchen shears to it (looking back now, Thor realizes that was probably what _had_ happened) and the greenest eyes he’d ever seen.

_“That boy is going to be trouble,”_ Odin says, after taking one glance at him and shaking his head in that way that adults do when a child hasn’t disappointed them yet, but they know it’s just a matter of time. 

Thor fights down the shout that rises in his throat in response. How can a person judge someone so quickly, without even bothering to meet them, without even knowing their name? Doesn’t everyone deserve a chance? Why couldn’t his father at least give Loki that much? It’s so unfair.

Thor is twelve years old and setting foot in the building that will be his new school for the next three years when he meets Loki. He’d been so nervous about being late to class that he ends up being an hour early for homeroom, and as he steps into the empty classroom, letting the door squeak closed behind him, he realizes it isn’t as empty as he initially thought.

There, in the back row, is a boy. He’s pale as a corpse and sitting perfectly at home with the metal chair beneath him tipped back onto two legs, his feet propped up on the desk in front of him. He’s looking right at Thor, staring a hole into him. Sunlight from the windows beside him hits the boy at an angle, making it look like he’s glowing. 

Thor’s throat is suddenly much too dry.

“Hi,” He says, lifting his hand in an awkward wave towards the other. The gesture isn’t returned, and Thor remains standing, wondering what he should do. He should take a seat, right? But where? If he sits too far apart from the other boy, he might think Thor is trying to avoid him, and Thor doesn’t want to hurt his feelings like that. But then again, the boy _is_ sitting in the farthest row back, and what if Thor doesn’t hear the teacher all the way back there? Thor sneaks another glance at the boy, inky waves spilling over slim shoulders, his green eyes twin, sparkling peridots in the light from the window.

He sits in the back.

The kid gives Thor a slow blink as he sinks into the seat next to him, long-lashes fluttering against pale cheeks in silent appraisal. 

“Hello,” The other boy murmurs after a while, voice quiet enough that Thor wonders for a second if the boy really said anything at all or if he merely imagined it.

A second later, the boy reaches into his bookbag, pulling out a small cardboard box and a lighter. He smoothly opens the box, revealing a row of paper cigarettes, and plucks one out. He carefully repacks the rest and places the box back before he lights it and takes a drag, two delicate fingers clutching the cigarette between them. The acrid stench of smoke fills the room. 

Thor watches the whole thing, too entranced by the boy’s movements to look away. The boy catches his staring and raises a brow in response. A pale hand reaches out towards the blonde, extending the cigarette in offering.

“Want a try?” 

“You’re not supposed to smoke in here,” Thor says dumbly, in lieu of a response. Though given that they’re both minors, he’s reasonably sure they aren’t supposed to smoke anywhere. 

Thor holds his breath as soon as the words leave his mouth, waiting for the inevitable anger or offense to greet him. Imagine his surprise, when instead of yelling or cursing him out like Thor expects, the boy tilts his head back and laughs, the sound making Thor’s stomach flutter. It’s a pleasant sound. 

“There’s a lot of things I’m not supposed to do, but that’s never stopped me before. Besides, it’s just a bit of fun, really,” The boy replies after a while, fixing Thor with a shrug and a relaxed curl of his lips. “Are you going to snitch on me now?”

“No.” Thor isn’t sure what compels him to say it, to want to keep this boy’s secret. He doesn’t even know him. And _yet-_

“Good.”

“Good?”

“Mhm. Because if you did, I’d have to punch you,”The boy shrugs again, tossing dark waves over his shoulder with the movement. 

Thor glances at the boy’s arms – like two pale twigs peeking out from beneath swathes of dark fabric. He doesn’t think the other boy would be able to do much damage to him anyway, even if he _did_ punch him, but Thor figures that’s just the other boy’s bizarre way of saying ‘thank you’, so he refrains from saying anything and leaves it alone.

Minutes tick by, wisps of cigarette smoke curling in the air above them, reaching towards the ceiling like a pair of invisible hands and settling over the room in a burnt fog. It masks the silence, so Thor doesn’t mind. 

Before long, the first bell for homeroom rings, and thousands of sets of footsteps fill the narrow halls as students all trip over each other in their rush to get to class. Already, Thor mourns the loss of this comfortable quiet between him and the other boy. 

“By the way, you can call me Loki,” The other boy murmurs, his eyes fixed determinedly on the window as the words leave his lips. Thor bites down on a smile just as the door swings open, and students file into the room.

Thor and Loki become fast friends after that, growing close quickly. At some point, seeing one without the other becomes a rare sight. Thor’s friends don’t like Loki, making no attempts to hide their snide remarks or hidden insults when the other boy is around. Loki assures Thor that he’s not bothered by it, so Thor tries not to be either. 

They learn things about each other too. For instance, Thor learns that Loki has a massive sweet tooth and that he wants to get a tattoo someday. And Thor confesses to Loki that he doesn’t enjoy going to church with his parents every Sunday, but he’d never tell them that because his father would probably still make him go, anyway. 

The next time Loki offers a cigarette, Thor doesn’t decline. It’s awful at first; the taste is horrid, and it makes him cough. Loki laughs at him for it, and oh, there it is again—that fluttery feeling in Thor’s belly returns, only this time it’s accompanied by a strange pain in his chest. Thor’s cheeks heat with embarrassment, but he can’t help thinking it’s worth it if he gets to see Loki laugh.

He gets the hang of it after a while anyway.

The first time Thor gets in trouble, it’s because a teacher caught him and Loki smoking on school grounds. His father yells at him for hours, but his mother only shakes her head in disappointment and the blonde can’t decide which is worse. 

Thor doesn’t come down to dinner that night, too busy texting Loki.

The second time he gets suspended for a week. Some little shit found him and Loki trading a joint back and forth and ratted them out. 

The first year of high school, something changes between them. 

Thor becomes more conscious of Loki, the way his teeth gnaw at his lower lip when he’s concentrating particularly hard, and the way his clothing clings to his wispy form. He wonders what it would be like to kiss Loki, to touch him. His friends grow worse in their dislike of the brunette and no longer make any attempt to hide it. 

Fandral calls Loki a freak and a fag, then rounds on Thor when he tells the other boy to knock it off.

_“There you go, defending him again. What is with you two, Thor? Seriously? I mean, you follow the little weirdo around like a lost puppy all the time. Do you have a crush on the freak or what?”_

Thor punches his friend in the face, breaks the other boy’s jaw into five pieces, and fractures his nose. When the principal finds out, he threatens to expel Thor unless he apologizes. Thor refuses, but thanks to his father’s influence, he only gets two weeks of suspension instead. None of his friends dare say a word about Loki after that. 

Fandral doesn’t return to school.

Behind the bleachers is where Thor kisses Loki for the first time, on a balmy spring afternoon, pressed up against the graffiti-covered brick wall. He winds his hands through black hair as he licks into the other boy’s mouth, Loki mewling against his lips and his hands gripping desperately at Thor’s shirt as he tugs him closer. 

_This must be what heaven tastes like,_ Thor thinks, sinking down to the asphalt and pulling Loki with him, the brunette straddling the blonde’s lap as they continue to get lost in each other. _Like Gatorade and artificial cherry flavor._

After that, Thor learns a lot more about Loki. Like how he doesn’t have his driving license because he totaled his parents’ car on what he calls a “fender-bender” and neither is willing to let him behind the wheel again soon. Or that he works part time as a waiter at the Starbucks on the edge of town but absolutely hates it; the only reason he keeps the job is so he can save up enough money to move out sooner.

He also has two older brothers, Helblindi and Byleistr. Thor hasn’t met them, and Loki doesn’t talk about them, the only reason Thor is even privy to their existence at all is because one weekend, Thor went over to Loki’s house when the brunette wasn’t answering his texts, only to find out he wasn’t there. He’d spent Saturday and Sunday with his eyes glued to his phone, before running into Loki at school on Monday morning like nothing had even happened. Loki admitted that he’d spent the weekend at Hel’s place, something that he did when his parents’ fighting got out of hand—and that maybe he’d forgotten his phone on his bedside table when he left.

But by far, his most favorite discovery about Loki is just how sensitive to his touch the brunette is. Every press of Thor’s lips to his skin, every trail of his fingertips over porcelain skin has the brunette beneath him crying out, the first time they have sex. Thor delights in it, wringing such desperate mewls and moans from the other boy beneath him with each touch. By the end of it, Loki’s cheeks are flushed bright red, and his hair a frizzy, tangled mess splayed out on the pillows beneath him. Thor thinks he’s never looked more beautiful. 

Eventually, Loki cracks an eye open to glance at Thor. 

“Well? Are you just going to sit there all day and watch me wallow in my own filth, or are you going to get me a washcloth?” He asks, and though it sounds more like a demand than a question, Thor can’t find it in him to mind, too busy remembering the delicious noises the other boy had been making just moments ago, and the sound of his name leaving those red lips in a strangled gasp. 

_“Thor!”_

Thor doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of hearing his name out of Loki’s mouth.

“I don’t know what I want to do with my life,” Loki tells him one day, as he lounges on Thor’s bed, head hanging over the side, hair spilling onto the ground below. He picks his head up long enough to look at Thor to gauge his response, removing the popsicle he’d been idly sucking on long enough to form the words. It’s watermelon flavored. His lips and tongue are stained dark from the green dye. “Do you?”

Why is it green? Aren’t watermelons pink on the inside? Thor will never understand that one.

“You remind me of my aunt when you ask things like that,” Thor replies with a wrinkle of his nose. “Next, you’ll be asking me when I’m going to settle down with some nice girl from church.”

“Oh, but you’re such a handsome young man. Haven’t you grown out of associating with that little troublesome, homosexual, yet?” Loki croons, affecting a high-pitched voice as he sits up all the way, leaning in to pinch Thor’s cheek with sticky fingers. 

Thor chuckles and shoves the other away with a light push, before wincing.

“You got me all sticky,” He groans.

“I did the same thing last night and you weren’t complaining then,” Loki teases with a wiggle of his eyebrows before he gives a roll of his eyes. “Now will you just answer the question?”

“Why? Since when do you care about things like that, anyway?”

The brunette shrugs. “Maybe I’m just curious. Is that a crime?”

“To be honest, I haven’t thought about it that much. I don’t know,” Thor says, and it’s the truth. He’s never really been one for thinking about the future. “My parents will probably force me to go to college though.”

“Doyou _want_ to go to college?”

“Not really - too much work,” Thor makes a face for good measure, and it gets a laugh out of Loki. “What about you?”

“Hm?”

“You’re going to college, right? Come on, I’ve seen your grades, you could probably get in anywhere if you wanted to. Hell, you could go to one of those bigshots, like Harvard or Yale or something.”

Loki rolls his eyes. “They’re called _ivy leagues_.” 

“See? Plus it’s not like you can’t afford it.”

“True,” The brunette’s delicate shoulders lift in a shrug beneath the loose tank he has on. “I suppose I just don’t see the point, when I don’t even know what I would major in, or where I want to end up someday. To be honest, I never thought I’d even get this far.” 

“In school?”

“In _life_.”

“Oh.”

Thor doesn’t ask what he means by that, and Loki doesn’t answer. It doesn’t occur to the blonde until later that night, long after Loki has gone home, that he never got an answer. It doesn’t matter, _Thor silently tells himself_. As long as he and Loki are together, nothing else matters. They’ll figure it out in their own time. Everything is going to be just fine.

Until it isn’t. 

**Author's Note:**

> steel-and-silver@tumblr.com
> 
> Come yell at me on Tumblr and bear witness to my constant shitposting. Alternatively, leave a comment! Or both! Either way, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! ❤


End file.
